1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image inspection apparatus, an image forming apparatus, an image inspection method, and an image inspection program, and more particularly to an image inspection apparatus, an image forming apparatus, an image inspection method, and an image inspection program to inspect the quality of images formed on recording media.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, to enhance image quality inspection precision, a sheet on which an image is formed is scanned both before and after image formation to obtain an inspection-target image regardless of whether the image forming operation involves single-sided printing or duplex printing. Then, the inspection-target image is compared with source image data to determine the quality of the printed image. The results of the sheet surface scan taken before conducting image formation are used to determine the quality of the recording media sheet.
When an image is formed on a first side of a sheet, such image may be observable on a second side of the sheet opposite the first side. In this specification, for simplicity, this phenomenon is referred to as image penetration, and image inspection conducted to detect for inspecting such phenomenon is referred to as image penetration inspection.
Ideally, such inspection should be conducted after each image forming operation. For example, with duplex printing, image penetration inspection should be conducted after the first image is formed. However, in actuality such image penetration inspection cannot be conducted when a first image is formed on the first side of the sheet, but can be conducted only after a second image is formed on the second side of the sheet, which means after the images are formed on both of the first and second sides. As a result, an image failure occurring at formation of a first image on the first side cannot be detected until after the second image is formed on the second side of the sheet. Therefore, image forming resources such as toner, ink, paper, or the like are consumed needlessly, and the image forming apparatus is degraded by unnecessary printing.